And it means that the weeks leading up to June 8 will be full of news about the campaign.

So what does it mean?

What is a general election?

A general election is how we choose our government. It's how we decide who gets to be Prime Minister and run the country, taking responsibility for schools, hospitals, defence, Brexit and more.

But we don't elect the Prime Minister directly. Instead, voters get the chance to elect a local MP.

The United Kingdom is divided into 650 constituencies, and each constituency has one MP. For example, Birmingham has a total of ten constituencies (with names like Birmingham Edgbaston or Birmingham Yardley) and ten MPs.

Most candidates who want to be MPs are members of political parties, such as the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats, Greens or UKIP.

Once the election is over, we can see which party has got the most MPs. If any party has more than half the MPs - that's 325 or more - then they get to form a Government and the leader of the party becomes Prime Minister.

If none of the parties has enough MPs then they can try to make deals with other parties so that they have more than half the MPs between them. In practice, the leader of the largest party will probably become Prime Minister.

How do we vote for our MPs?

You go to a polling station on election day - June 8 - and receive a sheet of paper with the names of the people standing in your constituency.

You write a cross in the box next to the candidate you want to vote for, and place the paper in a box.

You can only vote for one candidate.

The ballot paper will also show which party each candidate belongs to. Sometimes, people vote based on which party they like best. Other people ignore the parties and simply vote for the person they think would make the best local MP.